


Ace Up My Sleeve

by everyperfectsummer



Series: LOSF Diversity Week [3]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Asexual Barry, Asexual Character, Asexuality, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-10
Updated: 2017-08-10
Packaged: 2018-12-13 16:03:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11763423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everyperfectsummer/pseuds/everyperfectsummer
Summary: On giving flowers and holding hands.





	Ace Up My Sleeve

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for aphobia, and a somewhat negative view of Joe West’s parenting. Betaed by the amazing Hannah.  
> All asexuality is different! This is my experience but it may not be yours, and that’s totally ok :)

When he first starts seeing his therapist, he’s eleven, and dreams of one day holding someone’s hand or giving them flowers are all that anyone would expect from him, and she smiles as he tells her about the girl with the butterfly backpack.

 

Over a year later, his crush on the boy with the firetrucks elicits surprise, but no negativity, and a reminder that if people  _ are _ negative towards him, he should find an adult and tell them. He valiantly manages not to snort at that, and straight faced tells her that he will absolutely find an adult if he gets bullied, yes ma’am, as though bullies haven’t been hounding him daily since forever, and much more often since his mother died. 

 

His therapist tries to get him to talk about that a lot, but tries to mix it up between talking about his “trauma” and his present, as though there’s a sharp delineation between the two, as though living with Joe and Iris instead of Mom and Dad isn’t traumatic. Not that Joe and Iris are bad, in any way! Well, aside from Joe’s insistence that Barry’s a liar, and that Dad killed Mom, and that Barry shouldn’t be allowed to visit him even though he’s the only family he’s got. But Joe’s not like, abusive, or anything like that, is Barry’s point, so honestly he’s pretty lucky. 

 

Joe says it’s the other way around. “I’m lucky to have you, Bare,” he says, clapping Barry on the shoulder after the most awkward conversation of Barry’s fifteen-year old life. “So’s Iris.”

 

Barry doesn’t know what that has to do with The Talk that he just endured, or his vehement swearing that he will never ever do any of that gross stuff with anyone, but he’s just glad the conversation is over. 

 

At least until Joe says, “I couldn’t think of a better young man to have in love with my daughter,” and...his old crush on Iris is an incredibly poorly kept secret, but it’s just. It’s an  _ old _ crush, one whose fate was sealed along with Mom’s because it’s impossible to live with someone day in day out and have the same Dad and still have a crush on them.

 

So he just smiles fragilely and lets it drop – at least, until he’s in therapy and complaining to his therapist. Sure, he learned a while ago that he can’t trust her with anything  _ important _ important, but this feels trivial. Just another weird conversation with a man who’s not-quite his dad.

 

Instead of Joe’s weird behavior, though, the therapist is concerned about him. Was he serious, when he said he didn’t want to have sex with anyone, that he thought it was gross? Was he sure he didn’t picture anything beyond flowers and holding hands?

 

When he shakes his head, bewildered, she gives him a false smile and tries to reassure him about something he was never worried about, tells him about late bloomers and that puberty takes different amounts of time for everyone. 

 

By the time he’s twenty, and still stuck in therapy under Joe’s insurance because “You’ve had a tough life, Bare,” the late bloomer thing isn’t cutting it anymore. The therapist refers him to an endocrinologist, who, in her words, “might be able to fix this.” She also calls Joe and tells him about the referral, about how she’s “medically concerned about Barry,” so that Barry can’t weasel out of it. Barry’s pretty sure that that’s a violation of patient privacy, but is also pretty sure that there’s nothing he can do about it – what’s he supposed to do, sue her for talking to Joe without his permission, using Joe’s money to pay for the lawyer?

 

So Barry goes, and endures a painful consultation with Joe in the room, a barrage of tests that all come back normal, and a doctor who tells him that medication may not be able to help, with an air of tragedy, as though not being able to help Barry want to have sex is an awful event.

 

Barry just nods, and talks about how wary he is of medication, and side effects, and Joe mentions that he’s afraid of side effects too, which, thank god, because with two of them talking about how side effects might be worse than the symptom – even though the symptom is  _ clearly _ terrible – the doctor lets them go after just two appointments, washing his hands of Barry.

 

And so the matter mostly gets dropped, and Barry continues to dream about handing people flowers, so that he can see their faces light up, dreams about holding hands as they walk down the sidewalk, arms clasped tight between them, and at several points during college those dreams come true.

 

He meets a guy named Lucas, gives and gets flowers, holds hands walking around campus, gets his first kiss and discovers he’s not much for kissing. They break up shortly thereafter, with a promise to stay friends, and, more importantly, a referral to a friend of Lucas’s, who’s a member of the campus GSA, and knows about “all sorts of sexualities” – including one called asexuality. 

 

The friend, Evie, tells him everything they know about the subject, and then refers him to a pamphlet and some other friends who are “ace”. Apparently that’s the slang word, for people who are asexual. For people who are like him. 

 

“Not exactly like you,” Evie tells him. “Or, well, they might be. But they aren’t necessarily. You can be asexual and hate sex, or love it, or just not care either way, and those are all totally valid ways of being ace. And it’s a spectrum. You can be gray ace, or demisexual, and that’s ok too.”

 

He stares at them. “How can you be ace and love sex? Isn’t that the whole point? Not liking sex?”

 

They shake their head. “Aceness is about sexual  _ attraction _ , or actually not feeling sexual attraction, not about sex itself.”

 

He files that back into his mind to think about. “Okaaaay...so what are gray ace and demisexual?”

 

As they proceed to explain, Barry thinks his lucky stars that he met Lucas, that Lucas was kind instead of a dick about it, and that Lucas knew Evie in the first place, because having a mentor, even a non ace one, who knows about this stuff and cares enough to explain it? Makes all the difference.

 

He doesn’t really get all of this ace stuff quite yet, but. It’s a community. It’s telling him that he’s ok, that he’s normal, that he’s acceptable for the first time, and that – that matters. That matters a lot.


End file.
